DRUGS BOUGHT HEADHUNTER LAVISH LIFESTYLE: CROWN

Headhunter Peter Cleven enjoyed a lavish lifestyle from years of
selling enormous quantities of drugs, it was alleged in the High Court
at Auckland yesterday.

The Crown said the 38-year-old builder owned an $880,000 home in
Titirangi, had unexplained income of hundreds of thousands of dollars
and dressed in designer clothes.

He was said to have spoken in bugged conversations of making millions
out of selling methamphetamine and cannabis.

In one taped conversation, it was claimed, he talked of being able to
afford to buy a strip club called Showgirls for $3 million.

In his opening address to the jury yesterday, Todd Simmonds, appearing
for the Crown with Ross Burns, said Cleven was a very wealthy man but
his wealth could not be logically explained.

"The Crown case is that Mr Cleven has acquired a good deal of his
wealth through his drug-dealing activities," said Mr Simmonds.

But in a brief preliminary address, defence lawyer David Jones said
Cleven was a self-made man.

"He is someone who has got to where he is today not by means of
drug-dealing but by hard work ... you will hear from people who worked
with him who are amazed at his capacity for hard work - how he can
outwork anyone he has worked with in the past."

He was to be judged on the evidence and not on the basis of his
belonging to the Headhunter Motorcycle Club.

Cleven is charged with Anthony Clive Neho, aged 36, of Henderson, and
Lawrence Murray Cresswell, 34, of Whangaparaoa, with supplying
methamphetamine (speed) in late 1999 and early 2000.

Cleven also faces charges alone of supplying methamphetamine over
three years to 1999, possessing cannabis for sale in December 1999 and
selling cannabis over 12 years from 1988 to January 2000.

His former partner, Sarah Jane Ruru, 27, who has been excused
attendance at court because she is breastfeeding her baby, is accused
of aiding and abetting Cleven to supply methamphetamine.

Mr Simmonds told the jury that Cleven was the "main man" in a
large-scale distribution of cannabis and speed.

When the prosecutor observed that Cleven had a "not-so-humble" house
worth $880,000 with a $300,000 mortgage, Cleven was heard to mutter
"and you're jealous."

Analysis of his finances revealed that "at a very conservative
estimate" Cleven had unexplained income of $340,000 over the previous
five years, said Mr Simmonds.

Cleven is alleged to have boasted in one bugged conversation that he
used to deal 45kg of dak (cannabis) a week.

At street level, said Mr Simmonds, that would equate to between
$300,000 and $500,000 in cannabis sales a week.

"That's a lot of cannabis and a lot of money," the lawyer
said.

In the same conversation, Cleven allegedly boasted of selling a
million dollars worth of methamphetamine a year.

He was said to have bragged: "I've always got money in my pocket -
they're f full."

Mr Simmonds said speed was mostly snorted and often in the tapes,
which are to be played to the jury, there were sounds of sniffing and
snorting. When asked about these noises later by police, Ruru
allegedly said Cleven had hayfever.

At one point on the tapes Cleven and Cresswell discussed being watched
by police, Mr Simmonds said.

But despite those concerns, the police were able to bug further
conversations.

The pair also discussed the ability of the police to listen in on
phone conversations - "A touch ironic given the taps in place," Mr
Simmonds said.

In a taped conversation on Christmas Day 1999, Cleven allegedly talked
excitedly about digging up 7.7kg of cannabis that had been buried.

Mr Simmonds said this showed Cleven was still dealing in large amounts
of cannabis during the surveillance.

The trial is before Justice Mark O'Regan.

Neho is represented by Ron Mansfield; Cresswell by Anna Johns; and
Ruru by Ian Tucker and Mark Wotherspoon.